As is known, the success of dental implant therapy depends largely on the dimensions and physical-structural characteristics of the bone portion in which the implant is embedded; and the physical-structural characteristics in turn depend on the density, structure and mechanical strength of the bone portion, which must be large enough to accommodate and ensure good mechanical strength of the implant in use.
The success of implant therapy also depends largely on the degree of osteointegration between the outer surface of the implant embedded in the bone and the bone portion itself, which is an essential factor in ensuring stability and efficiency of the implant within the bone, and preventing long-term masticatory pressure on the implant from altering, impairing or even interrupting stable contact between the bone and implant.
To increase the success potential of implant therapy, implants of various forms and structures and various surgical implantation techniques have been devised to select the type of implant and location best suited to the physical and structural characteristics of the bone.
At present, however, operation planning in the sense of selecting the most suitable type of implant and surgical technique is hampered by difficulties in accurately determining the physical and structural characteristics of the bone.
Instrumental diagnosis techniques for determining the physical-structural characteristics of bone tissue are currently based on x-rays, which, however, only provide for a limited amount of data. Moreover, since techniques employing ionizing radiation are known to be potentially harmful, x-ray diagnosis cannot be repeated frequently. EC regulations (DL No. 197 of May 26, 2000) in fact tend towards promoting diagnosis and therapeutic techniques involving no ionizing radiation.
Therapeutic bone reconstruction techniques have been devised employing bone (or bone-substitute) grafts and/or membranes forming a substrate by which to regenerate the bone tissue, but are extremely slow (extending over months), and the degree of bone regeneration achieved using known techniques is somewhat variable and difficult to determine.
A demand therefore exists for a system involving no ionizing radiation, which provides a clear indication of the physical-structural characteristics of bone tissue, and which also provides for controlling and promoting bone reconstruction and regeneration.